Chindie

Have you tried Waterstones website? Not as cheap as Amazon in some cases but cheaper than their shops. Ended up going with Amazon - best part of £11 cheaper, I don't like using Amazon as much as I do and have done but at that kind of difference I can't be too picky.

That's kinda where I was. Initially I was hugely skeptical of the idea of an Avengers movie, it seemed cynical to me and I didn't think it was going to work. I felt Iron Man had legs, that the Hulk never seemed to live up to what it could (should?) be, I didn't think Thor had legs at all and expected it to be crap, and Cap could go either way. Once I saw Thor, I was won round a little. When stuff for the Avengers started to be shown I got excited and since then I've been hyped for it. I've got all the blurays too, and have watched them all rather more than I should have (even Iron Man 2 ) In the end I just really enjoyed it and it's one of the best comic book movies ever made. I'd have it tied with TDK... I suspect some people would put it ahead of Batman's best. It plays to the crowd as a big blockbuster action film. It does play to the comic audience at times I admit, a couple of moments will have people who haven't seen the build up films go 'Hmm...?' and strangely theres no recap of the build up. Look forward to Sunday. I honestly wish I could go in cold and see it again... I'll just have to live with seeing it a couple of more times with friends and family .

I liked the original Prototype but found it very brown, and a bit unwieldy at times. I'd hope they'd have sorted that out a bit, as it had all the ingredients for a fun **** about simulator

Put it like this. I love films and I've seen lots that are genuinely great pieces of work... intelligent, moving, excellent pieces of drama, worthy of awe. I think the Avengers is one of the best films I've seen. It's a film largely without artistic merit, it's not going to have people crying due to a great moment of emotion (though I can actually see one moment in particular making a few more emotional people have a little lip quiver ). But as pure popcorn wonderment... it's GREAT. Honestly... it's great. There are so many moments that, if you're a comic fan you'll go '**** YES! I've wanted to see that since... forever! Epic!'. And if you're not you'll get absolutely awesome moments anyway. I really want to talk about specific moments but I can't ruin it for anyone, it'd be a travesty. You'd be sat there waiting for the moments. Even if you've devoured the trailers and clips there are so many great things they've not shown.

The fact that Waterstones want to charge people £19 for Iain Banks latest. I didn't really want to give Amazon my money for once, but at that money, Amazon can take it.

Just back from the Avengers. **** incredible. It's up there with the TDK but approaches things from completely the other direction. It's... well if you think TDK is a serious film, that just so happens to feature a comic book hero, the Avengers is balls out comic book movie and wears it with pride. There are great action scenes, even things you don't expect much action from you get it, a couple of which are sustained fully fledged sections of the movie. For example it's no great surprise that the film ends with a huge action sequence but it really is a sequence, it's action scene, action scene, action scene... it's incredible. They really show off what they've done during that section with a great little set piece. What really propels the action though is you really give a shit about these characters. Even if you're not invested in the Marvel films to date, you get time to see these characters, get who they are. It's done quickly, and with a light touch often, because theres a lot of stuff to get through (we have 5 big, big characters to the piece after all, and your associated supporting cast get plenty of time too). There is snappy dialogue, great lines from plenty of characters (I think all of them get a gag, Stark gets about 5, some hit their mark more than others, Cap and Thor get a couple of excellent ones), you even have Loki get a chance to chew the scenery a bit - he has a scene with Black Widow that you can tell they would have liked to push a little bit more but ease off a little... and even so, he manages to pull off a quite sinister little moment for a 12A. Even Nick Fury gets some of the spotlight, finally. The action though... it blows away every last one of the films in this Marvel Universe to date. There are some superb set pieces, and every one of Iron Man, Thor, Cap, Hawkeye, Black Widow and especially the Hulk get to have some superb moments. It's hard to even talk about really without spoiling much, and trust me don't spoiler yourself on this one - I'd consumed every last bit of information about this and I still got an incredible ride out of it (they've kept a lot under wraps, and thats for the better) - but if you went in cold on it, you'd **** adore it. The action as the Avengers... assemble... is great. You have moment after moment that gets you going. I can't deny that for the first time since I was about 6, I was excited watching a film at a cinema, not just entertained. An early action sequence - some of which has been shown already - wih Thor and Iron Man had a guy in the front row of my showing waving his arms around in the air andfeeling every blow and every punch. And he wasn't challenged, just a normal guy. If I'd not have been so self conscious, my inner 6year old would have taken over too. But even he was blown away by the end, sat awestruck (or at least I couldn't see flailling arms flinging around in my peripheral vision). The Marvel films have suffered with weak third acts. That isn't the case here. As Loki's army ravages New York, the film throws everything at you. Hawkeye does more badassery with his bow, Black Widow twists, wrenches, shoots and shocks her way through the enemy, Cap goes to 100% hero, Thor hurls that hammer on all and sundry, Iron Man rounds up a sky full of alien invaders and gets to put his entire arsenal to use, and Hulk... Hulk smashes. Lots. The Hulk steals this film, he gets unleashed on it and pulls out all the stops. He has the most moments that in a rowdier cinema would have people whooping. He's used sparingly but you're glued to the screen when the green monster turns up. That whole attack on New York is superb. The film is superb, I struggle to criticise it, it's popcorn paradise. The main flaws I can think of are the plots not really going to set the Earth on fire - it's MacGuffin central. Sure it puts a couple of twists in it but ultimately, the Tesseract is just a MacGuffin. Loki's army, the Chitauri (the films tells you who they are in the first 30 seconds, it's no big deal at all), are just cannon fodder, they come into our world and get smashed, theres no set up for them (other than Loki's done got an army, they're called the Chitauri and they're aliens) and they do little besides get smashed. And it ends a little abruptly, albeit after some incredible scenes... it kinda goes 'Bang, done, roll credits'. I would criticise it for ending at all, but that seems harsh. Honestly, go see it. And if you're a comic fan or just interested to see where Marvel films are headed, stay after the end title sequence. If you're a bit of comic fan, you may have reason to be excited. If you're not, you'll have reason to go home and check some Marvel wikis . A geeky girl in the screening I was at went crazy. Even if you're not a comic fan, go see this. It's a top action film, it'll make you smile and giggle and maybe, just maybe, you'll get excited. I sure did.

Peter Jackson is making the Hobbit, not James Cameron James Cameron is the man lobbying for higher framerates though. He wants to gun for 60. I'm tempted to head to an afternoon screening of the Avengers on my tod tomorrow - friends won't be going till next week at the earliest... ...I'll just see it twice . No-one's gonna turn up for a 12.30 screening on a Thursday, surely. The mid-credit stinger has leaked in terrible, terrible quality, but having watched it (already knew what happened in it), comic book fans are going to get 3 seconds of footage that are going to make them go absolutely mental. And everyone else is going to go '...o...k?'. It's still a nice way for Whedon to sign off though.

For a big epic like the Hobbit films will be, I think it'll be hard to beat seeing it in a cinema. The 48fps thing ties in with 3D by the way, if you want any more reason to be wary of it. It makes 3D less blurry and awkward on the eyes as it helps smooth out movement and also eases the burden on creating the effect of depth, so your eyes should relax into it more. It'll still be shit because 3D just is, but it'll slightly less shit. From what was shown people have said that almost everyone gasped at how great it looked when they did a landscape shot like the LOTR films are littered with, a helicopter flyby of some mountains that allegedly was stunning. And then it all went wrong with the character stuff. Although even saying that 2 scenes, one of Bilbo and the encounter with trolls, and another of his riddle game with Gollum, seem to have got the people who saw it excited.

My suspicion is that might be along the lines of what will happen. Bruce Wayne will either die in the effort to stop Bane, or will be so **** he can't continue as Batman by the films end. Nolan finishes his trilogy with an underlining, definitive end to the story he wanted to tell. The new footage also includes more obvious shots of Bruce Wayne walking with a cane* so I think we can take it as given that Bane breaks him at some point in the film now. *Whaddya mean he's been walking with a Caine for 2 films now?

It doesn't require cinemas to have new screens, but it does require them to do an upgrade on their projectors to be able to process the higher frame rate. Apparently that could be as simple as a software update, but will still cost the cinema to do. How they will market and distribute this is interesting and ties into your point on there possibly being 4 versions. At the moment, nobody knows if they will actively advertise and promote the fact that it's 48fps. It'd be a bizarre thing to try to sell to your average punter - 'Coming this Christmas, THE HOBBIT, in lifelike 3D, gloriously presented in 48fps! Also available in 2D and 24fps'. I can't see them doing it, but equally I think they have to try to sell this is as being a new way to watch films. Interestingly I have heard that they can show the 48fps footage at 24fps, and it apparently would still look... different... to your average 24fps film, though not have the complete effect of 48fps obviously. So it's possible that could only distribute the 2 versions (2D and 3D) and then, if the cinema has invested in 48fps upgrades, they can show the whole thing as it's meant to be, and if not, you get a slightly smoother looking 24fps film.

Exactly. Being relegated is not going to see McLeish immediately out on his ear imo.

Sadly not as out of it as I'd like, apparently she wears a maid's outfit at some point. Which for a few people out there will be good enough

Nolan was present at CinemaCon to show a 5 minute 'sizzle reel' of TDKR which had a lot of new stuff shown apparently, and largely seems to have blown people away. A lot of action was shown, and not much dialogue. Of the dialogue that was shown, though, was some of Bane. You know everyone complained they couldn't understand a word in the prologue release at the end of last year, and how it was reported they were cleaning up his audio, and then Warner Bros denied it? A lot of reaction to the footage suggests Warner Bros were telling porkies. Anyway this footage apparently is fantastic, shots of Bane and Batman toe to toe, seemingly a lot of Anne Hathaway footage both in and out of her Catwoman get up, some action shots of Batmans latest toy that some people reckon is one of the most amazing shots shown so far... Theres talk that this 5 minute reel went down so well WB might put it out as the next trailer as opposed to a proper theatrical trailer. HYPE.

You'll not have been watching in 48fps though.

Yeah you'd think he'd have seen the issue with usng that turn of phrase... It's a cheap shot, I shouldn't laugh... but

Yes I've heard that Hunt (and the Tories generally) is getting a kicking in Parliament at the moment, even Harman is laying the smack down on him. Dead man walking, surely?

The reactions to it have been universally negative. Apparently the 48fps has the effect of looking like live TV broadcasts, cheap, with movement looking odd. /Film describes it as 'look[ing] uncompromisably real - so much that it looked fake'. It appears to make the 'seams', if you will, of film making more obvious - the makeup becomes more clear, the costumes look obviously like costumes, the CGI jars with the real footage. They describe as feeling like you would watching some behind the scenes footage. It isn't 'cinematic'. It's interesting that everyone who saw the footage seems to have come away negative, purely on the cinematography of it, the look of the thing rather that what they were watching.. It's also worth noting that the crew is on record saying that 48fps filming had given them new problems with things like costumes and makeup - it, in combination with the resolution they're shooting in, shows up flaws, you have less leeway with everything. So wigs have to be real hair because the fake stuff doesn't move properly which is obvious at 48fps, the makeup looks faker than usual and so on. The hope is that, because it was early non-finished footage, the post production work the film will undergo will make it cinematic again. All of the LOTR films, for example, had the colour palette fiddled with after the fact. Hopefully they can add in the cinematic look we love.

10 minutes of the first Hobbit film got shown to a few press people the other day. Unfinished footage, it was mainly, seemingly, intended to get people to have a look at some of the new tech behind the films. The films are being shot at 48fps, as opposed to the 24fps we're used to in most films, which massively alters the way the film looks and moves. Jackson himself said it's like having a window where the screen is as opposed to just your usual screen. Unfortunately, apparently, it looks shit.

Jeremy Hunt's advisor has fallen on a sword. Not sure whose.

It's more of an interactive movie. I always thought it was a cool idea that needed to be implemented differently, but generally it's rated fairly well. How much of that is because it's just different is open to discussion. God of War 3 won't let you escape the QTEs though

Lerner out.

Heavy Rain definitely is not everyone's cup of tea.

This would be car crash watching if we weren't so terminally dull on even a good day.

Jeremy Hunt should be squirming at the moment.